Easter Brunch Featuring: Malt Ball Cake!

I made brunch yesterday for a few friends. As is often the case, I had been fantasizing about the menu for several weeks.

I made eggs benedict with a twist. Instead of using ham or hollandaise, I drizzled creme fraiche (actually homemade mock creme fraiche) and crumbled smoked trout over homemade biscuits and poached eggs, topped with chopped green onions, chopped italian parsley and freshly ground black pepper. I served grilled asparagus on the side.



For the biscuits, I used Julia Childs's simple recipe for baking powder biscuits (1 cup of flour, 1/3 cup of vegetable shortening, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 cup of milk, mixed together, barely kneaded, brushed with butter and baked for 12 minutes at 425 degrees). The dough was very sticky, but the biscuits came out light, fluffy and delicious. I poached the eggs the night before, on the advice of Julia Child (for exactly four minutes) and heated them up the next morning (for only one minute in warm simmering water). Despite my worries, the eggs turned out well. The yolks were runny and yellow--perfect with the biscuits and trout.

But the focus of the brunch was a malt ball cake I made for dessert. Last December Food & Wine magazine published a photograph of a malt ball cake and named it as one of the upcoming tastes for 2007, but they did not print the recipe. I was dissappointed because the cake sounded good and I thought Lou might like it. I wrote a letter to the editor expressing my disappointment and asking them to print the recipe. Not long after I sent the letter via email, I got a response back from the assistant to the editor at Food + Wine asking if they could print my letter. I was thrilled and I gave her my permission. My short letter, along with the recipe, appeared in the March issue. The ironic thing is that when I told Lou about it he said he didn't think the cake sounded good at all. So much for me judging his tastes.

I had been thinking of the right time to make the cake since F+W published the recipe and the brunch seemed like a perfect occasion. I got it in my head to cover the cake with malt balls, and Lou and I decided to check out the malt ball selection at the new Miette Confiserie in Hayes Valley. Brad and Joey had told us about the new Miette last week, and I was eager to check it out. It's a beautiful store, and they had several jars of pastel malt balls on display for Easter. We were helped by Caitlin, one of the owners, and she made a helpful suggestion to crumble some malt balls up and add them as a layer to the cake. Brilliant!

I baked the cake on Saturday evening, and we assembled and decorated it later that night. I was skeptical about the recipe for the icing because it called for using 10 oz of milk chocolate, and no other cake I'd made before had called for using milk chocolate. I capitulated to the recipe and made it with the milk chocolate, and it turned out well despite my misgivings. Lou even said he thought it was the best icing he'd ever tasted.

After layering the cake and icing it thoroughly, we debated how to arrange the malt balls on the cake. After discussing various designs, including a big wave which would have run along the side with malt balls, we decided to create seven sections of different colors, in effect creating seven columns of colors around the cake. It worked. On top, we made five rows of different colors. We put it in the refrigerator to chill the icing, with hopes of fixing the malt balls in place.

After everyone had eaten on Sunday, we let the cake make its debut. We waited until the last minute to pull the cake out of the fridge, which in hindsight was a mistake because the cake was very cold and dense, but the dramatic debut was worth it. We served it with some homemade strawberry-balsamic ice cream (again, inspired by Joey and Brad who served us strawberry-balsamic ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery the week before). Our ice cream was a little tangey since we more or less made up the recipe, using a 1/4 of balsamic vinegar. Nonetheless, it still made a nice compliment for the cake. The cake was moist and the malt balls enhanced the subtle malt flavor of the cake itself. We left the cake out after the brunch ended, and Lou and I thought the cake tasted even better as it warmed up (I've eaten at least four slices since!). It stikes me as odd, but the cake became even more moist as it came to room temperature, and the warming also unleashed the richness of the butter-cream icing. It would have been better served at room temperature on Sunday morning. Oh well.

After all was said and done, Lou loved the cake I had asked Food and Wine to publish for him.




UPDATE: Check out this posting about the brunch from one of our guests.